--- title: "The Story of Missouri's Toxic Ghost Town." description: "Deep in Midwest Americana, just outside the city of St. Louis, lies the buried corpse of a town. What used to be a place for children to laugh and play in the pastoral waterways, amongst a thriving community of people who cared about each other, is now devoid of humanity, as it rots beneath the surface.\n\nBut this was no ordinary town. This was Times Beach, Missouri. This was a town that looked out for one another. This was a town that survived The Great Depression through hard work and community spirit. This was a town that rebuilt itself again and again.\n\nSo, what catastrophic thing could have happened here to make everyone leave it all behind?\n\nThis is a story that forces you to ask yourself, \"what is home?\" It's a story about struggle and resilience. It's a story about community, and it's a story about humanity.\n\nWelcome to Times Beach. Population? Zero.\n\n## Life's a Beach\n\nTo understand why this small town went from paradise to poisonous, we need to look at how it was founded, and the history will give us a feel for the human story, and the people alive today who were there when everything went wrong.\n\nTimes Beach was founded in a way that you might not expect, via a newspaper promotion. Back all the way in 1925, when it seems you could more or less just give American land away, the old *St. Louis Times*, a regional newspaper, launched an advertisement that you couldn't even conceive of happening today.\n\nIf you bought a six-month subscription to the newspaper for $67.50, a person could receive a tract of land in Times Beach, an idyllic little hamlet in the woods just 27 kilometres from the centre of St. Louis—that's about 17 miles for those of you who speak gun.\n\nNow don't get me wrong, this is absurdly cheap for land, even when adjusted for inflation it's $1,237 dollars in 2025 money. Expensive for a newspaper subscription for half a year? Absolutely. But for land it was pretty good, although you did need two of them realistically to have enough land to build a small house or cabin. $2,500 dollars wasn't exactly easy to come by for a lot of people in 1925, but for some it was manageable when saving for a little while. Or if you wanted you could put a $10-dollar downpayment on the land and pay the rest through instalments of $2.50 per month, which was a pretty sweet deal, with lots of people taking the paper up on their offer. The paper had actually bought the land from a farmer, rebranding it as a paradise resort, a place for doctors, managers, and high society individuals from St. Louis to kick back during the summer months, catch some fish in the mighty Meramec River, and forget about the troubles of the interwar years. So, Times Beach wasn't exactly designed for permanent habitation, at least not yet. It was more of a holiday park than a settlement.\n\nA full-page advertisement reportedly boasted:\n\n> \"The sweltering heat and discomfort of the city are unknown at Times Beach.\"\n\nBut this idyllic little slice of rural Americana would not remain this way for long. When the Great Depression hit in 1929, Missouri was devastated by the economic disaster, as much of the state was farmland. Lots of those doctors, managers, and folk who saved up to afford a little timeshare close to home, started to really struggle. Food was scarce, families suffered, across all of the United States, but here on the outskirts of Missouri, people took a chance.\n\nMarilyn Leistner, the last ever mayor of Times Beach was interviewed by the *St. Louis Magazine* in 2017, and whilst she was not alive at the time of the great depression, she naturally knew a lot about the settlement's history, stating:\n\n> \"During the Depression, a lot of the people in the city moved into their homes in Times Beach to ride out the hard times.\"\n\nThe prices in the city were just too high, you could downsize a little to a smaller rural community where competition for money and bread was less fierce. It seemed to work for the people who relocated, but the depression was not certainly not easy for anybody. Worse yet, in the 1930s, the states were ravaged by the dust bowl, as soil erosion and high winds turned middle America into a scene out of *Mad Max*, just minus the mutants and cars. The people of Times Springs could never have known it, but the dust that would blow in from far and wide into their community would topple the first domino in a series of events leading to the town's evacuation in the early 80s. But I'm getting ahead of myself.\n\nDespite the hardship, Times Beach began to slowly grow, both in population, but also in one of the most important elements of a functioning settlement, a community spirit. Cottages on stilts, built to avoid flooding, were replaced with modular homes and even a few brick houses. There were four churches and four taverns so people could balance their sins with their faith, this was the Midwest after all. The liquor store doubled as the tackle shop, and there was even a town hall. Much to the chagrin of longtime residents, a trailer park opened in the settlement, another would follow, and it even got a 7-Eleven… fancy.\n\nAnd no, it wasn't perfect, nor was it rich. Missouri and indeed Times Beach dragged itself by the fingernails out of the Great Depression, and that economic struggle remained for decades, but that sense of community, that shared struggle of what the town had been through, meant people were happy.\n\nBetween picnics in nature with your neighbours, river recreation, town dances, and that old community spirit America used to be known for before suburbs took over, it was pastoral, it was nurturing. It was a simple life, but a good life. A tiny slice of paradise, where the company you worked for wasn't nearly as valuable as the company you kept around you.\n\nFormer Mayor Leistner said:\n\n> \"It was like everybody was related to everybody.\"\n\nResidents today tell stories of being able to leave their houses unlocked, and how everyone watched everyone else's kids to look out for them. It was a growing, but close-knit community, welcoming, homely, like a family. Eventually by 1982, the small town had grown to a population of around 2,500. And pretty much nobody in all of the United States would have heard of it, were it not for a disaster on the horizon that would cost some residents everything.\n\n## Poisoning A Community\n\nSo far, we have a small but idyllic little town, some economic hardship, and some dust, but how did this lead to disaster among this seemingly perfect little community?\n\nWell, it's because of a few strange circumstances actually occurring outside of the St. Louis bubble entirely. Due Southwest on highway 44, just past the city of Springfield, is a little city called Verona, and in Verona throughout the 70s was a pharmaceutical facility part-leased by the private Northeastern Pharmaceutical and Chemical Company, otherwise known as NEPACCO, from the original company known as Hoffman-Taff who owned the building. Eventually NEPACCO would go under in 1976, meanwhile the facility, as well as Hoffman-Taff would be bought out by Syntex Agribusiness back in 1969.\n\nOk, and what were NEPACCO producing there? Well, they were producing a chemical known as \"Hexachlorophene.\" It was their main product they produced, which also just so happened to be banned in 1972, after 36 young children died in France following its use in talcum powder. It was mostly a chemical used for cosmetics at the time, as well as in things like soaps and creams, and its ban was why NEPACCO later went under. And as you can imagine, this stuff was an environmental hazard, acutely toxic in the wrong amounts.\n\nBut that's nothing compared to what Hoffman-Taff and later Syntex were making. You might have heard of it. Agent Orange, which contains very high concentrations of a kind of chemical called a dioxin.\n\nYes, the stuff they dropped on Vietnam for a decade under Operation Ranch Hand, this is where they were making it. As you can probably tell by how it worked out for the Vietnamese, dioxins aren't very good for you. Short term exposure to high levels of dioxins results in skin lesions and altered liver function. Long-term exposure is linked to impairment of the immune system, the developing nervous system, the endocrine system, and reproductive functions. Chronic exposure is linked to various cancers.\n\nOk, so that's really not great, but how does a chemical plant hundreds of kilometres away from Times Beach cause its ultimate destruction?\n\nAnd the answer to that, was logistics.\n\nThese chemical plants, like all chemical plants, have waste, and most of these facilities have meticulous procedures and regulations they have to meet in how they dispose of that waste. But it seemed that the facility and those involved in such operations, were lacking to put it mildly.\n\nAnd this is where we introduce the next character in this story, a businessman by the name of Russel Bliss. Bliss was a waste hauler at the time, and he was contracted to dispose of some of the chemical sludge byproduct that couldn't be used. But Bliss wasn't being completely straight with what he was doing with the waste. Some of it was stored or dumped, but the third option would be an ecological disaster for Times Beach.\n\nPart of Bliss' services as a waste hauler was the possibility of being to upcycle things people don't want into something useful. Bliss was a businessman at heart, and knew he could make more money by double dipping. He was often tasked with hauling away used motor oil, and he could use this oil to spray the roads as a dust suppressant. Remember the dust? Well, this why it's important. Bliss mixed some of the chemical waste with the used motor oil to use as part of this dust suppressant that he would then spray on anything that needed it for a fee. Roads, buildings, houses, churches farmland, you name it. But that oil was contaminated with some of the worst pollutants imaginable. And he did a whole lot of spraying in the Times Beach area.\n\nWithin a couple of days, cats, dogs, and birds in the vicinity began to drop dead. Horses became sick, and eventually, Piatt would be forced to bury more than 50 of them. Worst of all, Piatt's two young daughters, who played in the arena, later fell ill. But Hell hath no wrath like a mother scorned and Piatt all the way back in 1971 suspected that the oil sprayed by Bliss was the culprit. So, she donned her amateur detective's cap, and tailed Bliss, as well as the other drivers who worked for him. She found this connection between Bliss and the chemical plant in Verona. She would eventually win a lawsuit against both Bliss and the chemical companies. But if people had listened to her sooner, the abandonment of Times Beach could have been avoided.\n\nIn November of 1982, the city clerk received a phone call from a local reporter, asking if Times Beach residents knew that their town was highly contaminated with dioxins. They didn't. Despite Piatt's suspicions over a decade prior, nobody stopped Bliss from spreading that toxic waste all over the environment.\n\nAnd under a month later, disaster would strike Times Beach yet again.\n\n## Destroying A Community\n\nThe residents of Times beach didn't take the news lying down. If their town was contaminated, they wanted to know what with, and why. But here is where we introduce our final character, and one of the many villains of this story, the federal government, specifically the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA. The EPA, upon themselves learning of the contamination of Times Beach, told the town that it would take a year for them to get round to testing the soil. The residents, understandably unhappy with the concept of knowingly living on top of poisonous ground for a year, didn't really appeal. So, the town's inhabitants pooled money together to have Times Beach tested themselves. The EPA magically was able to immediately test the area soon after learning this. Huh, that's funny, that might be the quickest a year has ever passed.\n\nBut something was looming on the horizon for Times Beach that was much worse than government red tape and delays. The US Army Corps of Engineers had begun warning people in the local low-lying areas that severe flooding was coming. Weather predictions had showed a very large storm on the way that could cause flooding in places that were on flood plains. Times Beach was one such place, right on the Meramec River. Some residents were evacuated, but many defiantly chose to stay. They were used to mild flooding here, the houses used to be built on stilts after all. And wherever there was a little damage this community would pull together, fix what was broken, and move on with their lives. They assumed it would be the same this time. The bank that stood between the town and the river was steep and tall, there was no way there was going to be significant flooding. Right?\n\nUnfortunately for Times Beach residents, they were wrong.\n\nOn December the fifth, Missouri saw some of the worst flooding in its history. Torrential rains had led to the Mississippi river rising by three metres. Water poured over the top of the St. Louis Dam. The Meramec River, a tributary of the Mississippi, couldn't handle the surge, and burst its banks as water rushed into Times Beach. Before long the entire settlement was submerged under water that rose up close to the second floors of buildings. It was described as a once-in-500-years flood. Houses were ripped from foundations, vehicles and trailers were swept away by the surge, and many residents of the town were caught stuck in their homes. It took a week for the water to finally recede and for people to be able to return to the devastation and try to rebuild. Incredibly, nobody was killed.\n\nShortly afterwards the town was hit with a brutal one-two punch. The tests had come back, and the dioxin level was a problem. The EPA considered dioxin levels above one part per billion to be potentially hazardous. In Times Beach, the levels were more than 100 parts per billion. And it had just been washed around the ruins of people's homes, further contaminating the soil.\n\nUpon receiving this news the town's penultimate mayor resigned, placing Marilyn Leistner in charge. She would be the one ultimately who was forced to make the hard decisions. Those who returned to the area after the EPA's tests came back were instructed to leave, and anyone who didn't come back was told to stay away due to the potentially devastating effects of the flood and poisonous landscape.\n\nA guard and a caution sign were even posted at the entrance to the settlement, a bridge that came across from the high side of the river, to keep people out.\n\nBut the residents were conflicted and divided. People didn't know whether to try and rebuild again, or to ask for a property buyout via the EPA's superfund for disaster relief. A majority of the residents came to the grim conclusion that there was no quick way for the dioxins and God-know what other chemicals to be cleaned up. And what was the point of rebuilding homes that have already been destroyed by a flood anyway. The town had voted itself out of the National Flood Insurance Program a few years before, hindsight is 20-20 but that move proved unwise to put it mildly.\n\nBut a small number of people clung on. Perhaps through desperation, confusion, or outright denial of reality, they claimed that dioxins weren't dangerous. It had been there for decades with no harm done whatsoever. They had rebuilt before; they would rebuild again. This was their home, and they weren't going to just give it up for nothing. And this schism proved to be the canary in the coal mine for Times Beach. The debate raged, and even though it was only a small minority of people who wanted to stay, it split families and friends against each other. The literal foundations of the town had been eroded by the flooding sure, but Times Springs true foundations, its community spirit, was irreparably damaged, poisoned just like the ground beneath their feet. And as we all know, a house divided cannot stand.\n\nMayor Leistner had to side with the majority. She sent a petition with hundreds of signatures to President Ronald Reagan, asking for the homes of the people in Times Beach to be bought out at fair market price by the federal government, so that the residents can at least take some money with them and set up a new life somewhere else. In February of 1983, it was approved, much to the relief of many of the townsfolk. But to the holdouts, it felt like a betrayal of everything they had ever known. In May of 1983, a second flood hit the community, further compounding those who were still clinging on to the possibility that they could stay. Then the first offers came.\n\nThe federal government lowballed the residents. Leistner said:\n\n> \"The offers were very low, so we got organized. We would invite the press out, and we would spray-paint the prices on the homes.\"\n\nOffers were made purely on square footage, which didn't feel fair to those who owned newer, nicer houses that in a regular market would go for more. There was an appeals process that could net the disgruntled a few extra dollars here and there, but it wasn't all that significant, even with the extra relocation assistance provided by the superfund. If a new house outside of Times Beach cost more their old one, the superfund program would pay part of the difference towards it. A nice sentiment, but market forces took over, making things even worse for the residents.\n\nSellers around the local area knew that many people would be buying houses. It wouldn't take a genius to work that out, in the wider area 18,000 people ended up being evacuated and made homeless by the flooding. Many of them could choose to rebuild if they wanted, but many chose to move. The residents of Times Beach didn't have a choice. So, the house prices in the area spiked. People were forced to buy something pretty meagre, or move further away from the only place they had ever called home. What were they to do? What could they do? They took the money and squeaked out what they could. There wouldn't be a happy ending here.\n\nBy 1985, there were only one elderly couple still living in the toxic town, a George and Lorene Klein. The final holdouts of Times Beach.\n\nEventually though, those who chose to stay would end up with the worst deal of all.\n\nThe properties that didn't accept the buyout offers from the EPA went into condemnation. This meant the houses would be forcibly valued and sold by the courts. The judiciary's own appraisals came back even lower than what the EPA offered, without those other benefits like the relocation assistance for example. Eventually, nobody was left. In 1986, the town was officially disbanded.\n\nTimes Beach was no more.\n\n## Legacy, Grief, Humanity\n\nBut the story still wasn't over, even after the town was abandoned. It wouldn't be until the 90s that the state of Missouri was finally able to acquire all the property in Times Beach so they could start cleaning up a mess they did not make. The EPA decided that incineration would be the best way to decontaminate the site as much as possible. Inside the incinerator wouldn't just be the contaminated soil from Times Beach but also from dioxin sites all over the state.\n\nIn all, 265,000 tons of dirt from 27 locations would be burned. Various people opposed the idea under the suspicion that it would cause even more of an environmental issue by spreading harmful toxic fumes in a gas form far and wide across Missouri. Despite such concerns, the EPA didn't budge, and they refused to answer questions on their strategy. The incinerator would work, it would burn and destroy the dioxins completely, so you wouldn't have to worry about dioxin fumes, what was the big deal? Well people thought the scope was too narrow. What about all the other pollutants in the soil like the Hexachlorophene? Some areas had harmful chemicals never even associated with the Verona plant, what about them getting spread in fumes far and wide across Missouri? The EPA either didn't know, or they didn't want to know. They seemed ultimately more interested in finding someone to blame for this whole sorry charade.\n\nThe buck stopped with Syntex, who were made legally responsible for the cleanup and exploring the full scope of contamination. Syntex covered the cost of the cleanup and paid an additional $10 million dollars on top. The EPA weren't going to let a few people stop them from closing this loop in their books. Eventually though, after an outcry from a few committed individuals, the incinerator was shut down. But the EPA's ombudsman, an internal organisation of the EPA in charge of dealing with individual's complaints, recommended the incinerator to be retested for safety. But the retest had the same flawed parameters as the first test, and eventually the rest of the soil was burned.\n\nIn 2001, the former town was taken off the national priority list for federal cleanup. That was it, it was over.\n\nOr was it?\n\nBecause, still all these years later there is still a legacy of the disaster that plagued Times Beach, and a pretty important one at that. This environmental disaster didn't just put a ghost town on the map, it ushered forward a new era of environmental protection standards inside the US, at least that was something. But the legacy of the town itself is also important, and that continues to live on through the people who went through this ordeal at the time.\n\nAnimosity persists amongst the former residents. Some at the federal government and their poor management of the situation, some at the chemical companies responsible for the whole ordeal, as well as for Russel Bliss who was equally culpable. Some were mad at God Himself for bringing a flood that destroyed their homes, and some are angry at former mayor Leistner, who many today feel forced them to leave their homes behind for pocket change. But she wasn't to blame. She tried what she could to get the EPA to revise its offers, she tried to get people adequately compensated, but it was an impossible position. What bargaining power did one tiny town's mayor have against an entire governmental organisation? Especially when homes were destroyed, people were homeless. And ultimately those who didn't take the deal she helped broker ended up worse off in the end. What more could she have done? Leistner said in 2017 that she had no way of controlling what the EPA offered:\n\n> \"I didn't have anything to do with their money.\"\n\nPeople are still right to be bitter though. Their homes were washed away or rendered uninhabitable, the community that had been forged in the fires of the Great Depression, for some the only place they ever knew or wanted to know, was stripped away from them, and it wasn't their fault.\n\nAnd what about Bliss? What happened to him after this whole disaster came to a head?\n\nWell mostly he got sued out the wazoo. And now him and the chemical companies have spent many years playing the blame game. Bliss consistently denies having any knowledge that the materials were toxic, but the chemical companies have always maintained that they did disclose that the chemical waste was toxic. I mean it's a chemical plant, what did Bliss think he was hauling away, fruit?\n\nBut Bliss does have some evidence for his claim. He even sprayed the oil on his own property where he and his family lived. When previously questioned on the situation, he said:\n\n> \"If I thought it was something bad, would I spray it on my own farm where my family is? Would any human being do that?\"\n\nIf we view Bliss favourably here, you could see him as a naïve moron who thought he could make some easy money and ended up causing more problems for himself. But many do not believe his accounts. As a result of that lawsuit that Piatt filed from her amateur detective work in 1971, Bliss was forced to admit his waste-hauling activity and identify the dozens of sites across the state where he had dumped it. That doesn't necessarily mean he knew it was toxic, but if he didn't know it was toxic, why bury it? Why not take it to a dump or burn it like you would with regular garbage? I guess ignorance really is bliss.\n\nRussel views himself as a victim in all of this. He was sued a lot for his actions, and there were technically no laws against what he did at the time. But he did find himself in jail in the end anyway, on tax evasion charges because he didn't report his waste disposal income to the IRS. He told CNN of the people who blame him:\n\n> \"I think it's unfair, unjust… All my friends say that I was a scapegoat.\"\n\nMaybe he's right, who knows.\n\nThere are still scientific disagreements over dioxins today that stem from this very disaster. Scientists generally disagree how much it takes to put a person at risk, which probably depends on a whole host of factors anyway. People who claim dioxins aren't dangerous at all often take the words of Dr. Vernon Houk of the Centre for Disease Control or CDC, look at that, the third alphabet agency in this video, isn't the government great? Houk was recorded as saying that the evacuation of Times Beach was an overreaction. Although the people who carry this narrative tend to overlook the fact that Houk was the one who ordered the evacuation in the first place.\n\nBut others think the US government had an ulterior motive when they were dealing with the Times Beach situation, like Steve Taylor, co-founder of the Times Beach Action Group. He asserts that because the toxins at Times Beach were closely related to those in Agent Orange, the government may have had a vested interest in trying to minimise the Times Beach investigation, which would limit its own blame for what was happening with Agent Orange in Vietnam. Hence the EPAs lowball offer and delaying tactics for testing. After all, you would think the Environmental Protection Agency would be interested in... you know… protecting the environment.\n\nSteve Taylor states on the matter:\n\n> \"The Vietnam veterans (referring to those who suffered from health complications due to Agent Orange) got a huge settlement. There are a lot of people I know who were exposed to the same stuff and more - and didn't.\"\n\nAnd what of Times Beach today? Well, it's been transformed. The land that was once Times Beach has been turned into Route 66 State Park. The only building that remains is a former roadhouse that used to be the \"Bridge Head Inn\" in the town. It's now a museum and gift shop selling Route 66 nicknacks.\n\nThe area is plenty green, there's parking, a playground, and benches. If there's any harmful chemicals left it doesn't seem to bother the wildlife, with deer being spotted in the area, and skinny, new-growth trees are pretty common. There is a giant ash pit where the incinerator used to be, and a large mound where the contaminated houses were buried. Only the soil was burned. But generally speaking, the landscape is healing.\n\nEvery year, on the final Saturday of September, former residents of Times Beach gather on the site to see old friends, tell stories, and shed tears for their lost home. Many say they would move back in a heartbeat today.\n\nThe only real reference that a place was ever here are the ash pit, and a single display in a corner of the museum, which makes it even more suspicious, it really does seem like the US government were trying to hide the whole thing away. It feels disrespectful to the memory of the town, to the people who lived and grew up there. An entire portion of your life, boiled down to a small display in the corner of a museum somewhere.\n\nThere's still generational trauma that those who used to live there feel even today. Teachers at the time made Times Beach kids sit at the front of class, away from the rest of the students, in case they were somehow contagious of the toxins. People remember the flood, and the devastation, and the birds dying from the chemicals. Former mayor Leistner herself even felt that ostracization. She had a brand-new leather jacket that had gotten dirty in the flood, but when she took it to the dry cleaner, her business was refused. People and their children and their grandchildren still suffer from rare disorders and diseases. People can't prove it was the dioxins, as others have turned out fine, but its highly suspected.\n\nWhat hits home the most for the Times Beach disaster is that there is no happy ending here. Not really. The former residents come together when they can, as with every year that passes their old home is slowly lost and forgotten to the inevitable passage of time. But that community spirit can never be what it was, the buildings can't be rebuilt, and the memories can't be visited. It was a perfect storm of malice, ignorance, incompetence, and straight up bad luck that caused huge trauma that still persists to this day among so many people, even almost half a century later. But the story of Times Beach is a very human story, about desperation, about grief, about purpose, about belonging, about corruption, about greed, about conspiracy, about banding together as a people, about making the hard decisions when there can be no winners, and ultimately about moving on.\n\nRegardless of their home being gone, the residents of Times Beach will always be brought together by their uniquely shared experience.\n\nAnd maybe one day long into the future, people will splash, swim and fish in the Meramec River at Times Beach once again.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Times Beach, Missouri, was a close-knit community that thrived despite economic hardships.\n- The town's downfall began with the illegal dumping of toxic chemicals by a waste hauler.\n- A severe flood in 1982 exacerbated the town's contamination, leading to its evacuation.\n- The EPA's handling of the situation was criticized for delays and low buyout offers.\n- The legacy of Times Beach includes ongoing health concerns and a transformed landscape.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What was the original purpose of Times Beach?\n\nTimes Beach was originally designed as a holiday park for doctors, managers, and high society individuals from St. Louis to enjoy during the summer months.\n\n### How did Times Beach become a permanent settlement?\n\nDuring the Great Depression, many people from the city moved into their homes in Times Beach to ride out the hard times due to the lower cost of living.\n\n### What was the population of Times Beach at its peak?\n\nBy 1982, the population of Times Beach had grown to around 2,500 residents.\n\n### What chemical contamination led to the evacuation of Times Beach?\n\nThe town was contaminated with dioxins, which are highly toxic chemicals, due to the spraying of contaminated oil on roads, buildings, and farmland.\n\n### Who was responsible for the chemical contamination in Times Beach?\n\nRussell Bliss, a waste hauler, mixed chemical waste with used motor oil and sprayed it on various surfaces in Times Beach. The chemicals originated from a pharmaceutical facility in Verona, Missouri.\n\n### What role did the EPA play in the evacuation of Times Beach?\n\nThe EPA initially delayed testing the soil and later offered low buyout prices to residents, which caused significant conflict and division among the community.\n\n### What happened to the residents of Times Beach after the evacuation?\n\nMany residents accepted the buyout offers from the EPA and moved away, while a few holdouts remained until the town was officially disbanded in 1986.\n\n### What is the current status of the Times Beach site?\n\nThe land that was once Times Beach has been transformed into Route 66 State Park, with a museum and gift shop as the only remaining building.\n\n### What legacy does the Times Beach disaster have?\n\nThe disaster led to new environmental protection standards in the US and continues to affect the former residents, who still experience generational trauma and health issues.\n\n### What was the impact of the flooding in Times Beach in 1982?\n\nThe flooding submerged the entire settlement, destroyed homes, and further contaminated the soil with dioxins, leading to the eventual evacuation of the town.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Places video: The Story of Missouri's Toxic Ghost Town.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ElM_xAtbAY)\n- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Oblique_aerial_landscape_view_%28AM_86148-2%29.jpg) by Collins, Tudor Washington, 1898-1970, photographer / openverse, by.\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://places.site/article/missouri-toxic-ghost-town-times-beach.md canonical: https://places.site/article/missouri-toxic-ghost-town-times-beach datePublished: 2026-07-01 dateModified: 2026-07-01 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://places.site/author/simon-whistler publisher: Places image: "https://media.places.site/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/3ElM_xAtbAY/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 30571bfe4c156133a04f902c727b9dcb8f7e4410ef716ade0fab7d5459c5d3e0 tokens: 8110 summaryUrl: https://places.site/article/missouri-toxic-ghost-town-times-beach.md.summary.md --- Deep in Midwest Americana, just outside the city of St. Louis, lies the buried corpse of a town. What used to be a place for children to laugh and play in the pastoral waterways, amongst a thriving community of people who cared about each other, is now devoid of humanity, as it rots beneath the surface. But this was no ordinary town. This was Times Beach, Missouri. This was a town that looked out for one another. This was a town that survived The Great Depression through hard work and community spirit. This was a town that rebuilt itself again and again. So, what catastrophic thing could have happened here to make everyone leave it all behind? This is a story that forces you to ask yourself, "what is home?" It's a story about struggle and resilience. It's a story about community, and it's a story about humanity. Welcome to Times Beach. Population? Zero. ## Life's a Beach To understand why this small town went from paradise to poisonous, we need to look at how it was founded, and the history will give us a feel for the human story, and the people alive today who were there when everything went wrong. Times Beach was founded in a way that you might not expect, via a newspaper promotion. Back all the way in 1925, when it seems you could more or less just give American land away, the old *St. Louis Times*, a regional newspaper, launched an advertisement that you couldn't even conceive of happening today. If you bought a six-month subscription to the newspaper for $67.50, a person could receive a tract of land in Times Beach, an idyllic little hamlet in the woods just 27 kilometres from the centre of St. Louis—that's about 17 miles for those of you who speak gun. Now don't get me wrong, this is absurdly cheap for land, even when adjusted for inflation it's $1,237 dollars in 2025 money. Expensive for a newspaper subscription for half a year? Absolutely. But for land it was pretty good, although you did need two of them realistically to have enough land to build a small house or cabin. $2,500 dollars wasn't exactly easy to come by for a lot of people in 1925, but for some it was manageable when saving for a little while. Or if you wanted you could put a $10-dollar downpayment on the land and pay the rest through instalments of $2.50 per month, which was a pretty sweet deal, with lots of people taking the paper up on their offer. The paper had actually bought the land from a farmer, rebranding it as a paradise resort, a place for doctors, managers, and high society individuals from St. Louis to kick back during the summer months, catch some fish in the mighty Meramec River, and forget about the troubles of the interwar years. So, Times Beach wasn't exactly designed for permanent habitation, at least not yet. It was more of a holiday park than a settlement. A full-page advertisement reportedly boasted: > "The sweltering heat and discomfort of the city are unknown at Times Beach." But this idyllic little slice of rural Americana would not remain this way for long. When the Great Depression hit in 1929, Missouri was devastated by the economic disaster, as much of the state was farmland. Lots of those doctors, managers, and folk who saved up to afford a little timeshare close to home, started to really struggle. Food was scarce, families suffered, across all of the United States, but here on the outskirts of Missouri, people took a chance. Marilyn Leistner, the last ever mayor of Times Beach was interviewed by the *St. Louis Magazine* in 2017, and whilst she was not alive at the time of the great depression, she naturally knew a lot about the settlement's history, stating: > "During the Depression, a lot of the people in the city moved into their homes in Times Beach to ride out the hard times." The prices in the city were just too high, you could downsize a little to a smaller rural community where competition for money and bread was less fierce. It seemed to work for the people who relocated, but the depression was not certainly not easy for anybody. Worse yet, in the 1930s, the states were ravaged by the dust bowl, as soil erosion and high winds turned middle America into a scene out of *Mad Max*, just minus the mutants and cars. The people of Times Springs could never have known it, but the dust that would blow in from far and wide into their community would topple the first domino in a series of events leading to the town's evacuation in the early 80s. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Despite the hardship, Times Beach began to slowly grow, both in population, but also in one of the most important elements of a functioning settlement, a community spirit. Cottages on stilts, built to avoid flooding, were replaced with modular homes and even a few brick houses. There were four churches and four taverns so people could balance their sins with their faith, this was the Midwest after all. The liquor store doubled as the tackle shop, and there was even a town hall. Much to the chagrin of longtime residents, a trailer park opened in the settlement, another would follow, and it even got a 7-Eleven… fancy. And no, it wasn't perfect, nor was it rich. Missouri and indeed Times Beach dragged itself by the fingernails out of the Great Depression, and that economic struggle remained for decades, but that sense of community, that shared struggle of what the town had been through, meant people were happy. Between picnics in nature with your neighbours, river recreation, town dances, and that old community spirit America used to be known for before suburbs took over, it was pastoral, it was nurturing. It was a simple life, but a good life. A tiny slice of paradise, where the company you worked for wasn't nearly as valuable as the company you kept around you. Former Mayor Leistner said: > "It was like everybody was related to everybody." Residents today tell stories of being able to leave their houses unlocked, and how everyone watched everyone else's kids to look out for them. It was a growing, but close-knit community, welcoming, homely, like a family. Eventually by 1982, the small town had grown to a population of around 2,500. And pretty much nobody in all of the United States would have heard of it, were it not for a disaster on the horizon that would cost some residents everything. ## Poisoning A Community So far, we have a small but idyllic little town, some economic hardship, and some dust, but how did this lead to disaster among this seemingly perfect little community? Well, it's because of a few strange circumstances actually occurring outside of the St. Louis bubble entirely. Due Southwest on highway 44, just past the city of Springfield, is a little city called Verona, and in Verona throughout the 70s was a pharmaceutical facility part-leased by the private Northeastern Pharmaceutical and Chemical Company, otherwise known as NEPACCO, from the original company known as Hoffman-Taff who owned the building. Eventually NEPACCO would go under in 1976, meanwhile the facility, as well as Hoffman-Taff would be bought out by Syntex Agribusiness back in 1969. Ok, and what were NEPACCO producing there? Well, they were producing a chemical known as "Hexachlorophene." It was their main product they produced, which also just so happened to be banned in 1972, after 36 young children died in France following its use in talcum powder. It was mostly a chemical used for cosmetics at the time, as well as in things like soaps and creams, and its ban was why NEPACCO later went under. And as you can imagine, this stuff was an environmental hazard, acutely toxic in the wrong amounts. But that's nothing compared to what Hoffman-Taff and later Syntex were making. You might have heard of it. Agent Orange, which contains very high concentrations of a kind of chemical called a dioxin. Yes, the stuff they dropped on Vietnam for a decade under Operation Ranch Hand, this is where they were making it. As you can probably tell by how it worked out for the Vietnamese, dioxins aren't very good for you. Short term exposure to high levels of dioxins results in skin lesions and altered liver function. Long-term exposure is linked to impairment of the immune system, the developing nervous system, the endocrine system, and reproductive functions. Chronic exposure is linked to various cancers. Ok, so that's really not great, but how does a chemical plant hundreds of kilometres away from Times Beach cause its ultimate destruction? And the answer to that, was logistics. These chemical plants, like all chemical plants, have waste, and most of these facilities have meticulous procedures and regulations they have to meet in how they dispose of that waste. But it seemed that the facility and those involved in such operations, were lacking to put it mildly. And this is where we introduce the next character in this story, a businessman by the name of Russel Bliss. Bliss was a waste hauler at the time, and he was contracted to dispose of some of the chemical sludge byproduct that couldn't be used. But Bliss wasn't being completely straight with what he was doing with the waste. Some of it was stored or dumped, but the third option would be an ecological disaster for Times Beach. Part of Bliss' services as a waste hauler was the possibility of being to upcycle things people don't want into something useful. Bliss was a businessman at heart, and knew he could make more money by double dipping. He was often tasked with hauling away used motor oil, and he could use this oil to spray the roads as a dust suppressant. Remember the dust? Well, this why it's important. Bliss mixed some of the chemical waste with the used motor oil to use as part of this dust suppressant that he would then spray on anything that needed it for a fee. Roads, buildings, houses, churches farmland, you name it. But that oil was contaminated with some of the worst pollutants imaginable. And he did a whole lot of spraying in the Times Beach area. Within a couple of days, cats, dogs, and birds in the vicinity began to drop dead. Horses became sick, and eventually, Piatt would be forced to bury more than 50 of them. Worst of all, Piatt's two young daughters, who played in the arena, later fell ill. But Hell hath no wrath like a mother scorned and Piatt all the way back in 1971 suspected that the oil sprayed by Bliss was the culprit. So, she donned her amateur detective's cap, and tailed Bliss, as well as the other drivers who worked for him. She found this connection between Bliss and the chemical plant in Verona. She would eventually win a lawsuit against both Bliss and the chemical companies. But if people had listened to her sooner, the abandonment of Times Beach could have been avoided. In November of 1982, the city clerk received a phone call from a local reporter, asking if Times Beach residents knew that their town was highly contaminated with dioxins. They didn't. Despite Piatt's suspicions over a decade prior, nobody stopped Bliss from spreading that toxic waste all over the environment. And under a month later, disaster would strike Times Beach yet again. ## Destroying A Community The residents of Times beach didn't take the news lying down. If their town was contaminated, they wanted to know what with, and why. But here is where we introduce our final character, and one of the many villains of this story, the federal government, specifically the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA. The EPA, upon themselves learning of the contamination of Times Beach, told the town that it would take a year for them to get round to testing the soil. The residents, understandably unhappy with the concept of knowingly living on top of poisonous ground for a year, didn't really appeal. So, the town's inhabitants pooled money together to have Times Beach tested themselves. The EPA magically was able to immediately test the area soon after learning this. Huh, that's funny, that might be the quickest a year has ever passed. But something was looming on the horizon for Times Beach that was much worse than government red tape and delays. The US Army Corps of Engineers had begun warning people in the local low-lying areas that severe flooding was coming. Weather predictions had showed a very large storm on the way that could cause flooding in places that were on flood plains. Times Beach was one such place, right on the Meramec River. Some residents were evacuated, but many defiantly chose to stay. They were used to mild flooding here, the houses used to be built on stilts after all. And wherever there was a little damage this community would pull together, fix what was broken, and move on with their lives. They assumed it would be the same this time. The bank that stood between the town and the river was steep and tall, there was no way there was going to be significant flooding. Right? Unfortunately for Times Beach residents, they were wrong. On December the fifth, Missouri saw some of the worst flooding in its history. Torrential rains had led to the Mississippi river rising by three metres. Water poured over the top of the St. Louis Dam. The Meramec River, a tributary of the Mississippi, couldn't handle the surge, and burst its banks as water rushed into Times Beach. Before long the entire settlement was submerged under water that rose up close to the second floors of buildings. It was described as a once-in-500-years flood. Houses were ripped from foundations, vehicles and trailers were swept away by the surge, and many residents of the town were caught stuck in their homes. It took a week for the water to finally recede and for people to be able to return to the devastation and try to rebuild. Incredibly, nobody was killed. Shortly afterwards the town was hit with a brutal one-two punch. The tests had come back, and the dioxin level was a problem. The EPA considered dioxin levels above one part per billion to be potentially hazardous. In Times Beach, the levels were more than 100 parts per billion. And it had just been washed around the ruins of people's homes, further contaminating the soil. Upon receiving this news the town's penultimate mayor resigned, placing Marilyn Leistner in charge. She would be the one ultimately who was forced to make the hard decisions. Those who returned to the area after the EPA's tests came back were instructed to leave, and anyone who didn't come back was told to stay away due to the potentially devastating effects of the flood and poisonous landscape. A guard and a caution sign were even posted at the entrance to the settlement, a bridge that came across from the high side of the river, to keep people out. But the residents were conflicted and divided. People didn't know whether to try and rebuild again, or to ask for a property buyout via the EPA's superfund for disaster relief. A majority of the residents came to the grim conclusion that there was no quick way for the dioxins and God-know what other chemicals to be cleaned up. And what was the point of rebuilding homes that have already been destroyed by a flood anyway. The town had voted itself out of the National Flood Insurance Program a few years before, hindsight is 20-20 but that move proved unwise to put it mildly. But a small number of people clung on. Perhaps through desperation, confusion, or outright denial of reality, they claimed that dioxins weren't dangerous. It had been there for decades with no harm done whatsoever. They had rebuilt before; they would rebuild again. This was their home, and they weren't going to just give it up for nothing. And this schism proved to be the canary in the coal mine for Times Beach. The debate raged, and even though it was only a small minority of people who wanted to stay, it split families and friends against each other. The literal foundations of the town had been eroded by the flooding sure, but Times Springs true foundations, its community spirit, was irreparably damaged, poisoned just like the ground beneath their feet. And as we all know, a house divided cannot stand. Mayor Leistner had to side with the majority. She sent a petition with hundreds of signatures to President Ronald Reagan, asking for the homes of the people in Times Beach to be bought out at fair market price by the federal government, so that the residents can at least take some money with them and set up a new life somewhere else. In February of 1983, it was approved, much to the relief of many of the townsfolk. But to the holdouts, it felt like a betrayal of everything they had ever known. In May of 1983, a second flood hit the community, further compounding those who were still clinging on to the possibility that they could stay. Then the first offers came. The federal government lowballed the residents. Leistner said: > "The offers were very low, so we got organized. We would invite the press out, and we would spray-paint the prices on the homes." Offers were made purely on square footage, which didn't feel fair to those who owned newer, nicer houses that in a regular market would go for more. There was an appeals process that could net the disgruntled a few extra dollars here and there, but it wasn't all that significant, even with the extra relocation assistance provided by the superfund. If a new house outside of Times Beach cost more their old one, the superfund program would pay part of the difference towards it. A nice sentiment, but market forces took over, making things even worse for the residents. Sellers around the local area knew that many people would be buying houses. It wouldn't take a genius to work that out, in the wider area 18,000 people ended up being evacuated and made homeless by the flooding. Many of them could choose to rebuild if they wanted, but many chose to move. The residents of Times Beach didn't have a choice. So, the house prices in the area spiked. People were forced to buy something pretty meagre, or move further away from the only place they had ever called home. What were they to do? What could they do? They took the money and squeaked out what they could. There wouldn't be a happy ending here. By 1985, there were only one elderly couple still living in the toxic town, a George and Lorene Klein. The final holdouts of Times Beach. Eventually though, those who chose to stay would end up with the worst deal of all. The properties that didn't accept the buyout offers from the EPA went into condemnation. This meant the houses would be forcibly valued and sold by the courts. The judiciary's own appraisals came back even lower than what the EPA offered, without those other benefits like the relocation assistance for example. Eventually, nobody was left. In 1986, the town was officially disbanded. Times Beach was no more. ## Legacy, Grief, Humanity But the story still wasn't over, even after the town was abandoned. It wouldn't be until the 90s that the state of Missouri was finally able to acquire all the property in Times Beach so they could start cleaning up a mess they did not make. The EPA decided that incineration would be the best way to decontaminate the site as much as possible. Inside the incinerator wouldn't just be the contaminated soil from Times Beach but also from dioxin sites all over the state. In all, 265,000 tons of dirt from 27 locations would be burned. Various people opposed the idea under the suspicion that it would cause even more of an environmental issue by spreading harmful toxic fumes in a gas form far and wide across Missouri. Despite such concerns, the EPA didn't budge, and they refused to answer questions on their strategy. The incinerator would work, it would burn and destroy the dioxins completely, so you wouldn't have to worry about dioxin fumes, what was the big deal? Well people thought the scope was too narrow. What about all the other pollutants in the soil like the Hexachlorophene? Some areas had harmful chemicals never even associated with the Verona plant, what about them getting spread in fumes far and wide across Missouri? The EPA either didn't know, or they didn't want to know. They seemed ultimately more interested in finding someone to blame for this whole sorry charade. The buck stopped with Syntex, who were made legally responsible for the cleanup and exploring the full scope of contamination. Syntex covered the cost of the cleanup and paid an additional $10 million dollars on top. The EPA weren't going to let a few people stop them from closing this loop in their books. Eventually though, after an outcry from a few committed individuals, the incinerator was shut down. But the EPA's ombudsman, an internal organisation of the EPA in charge of dealing with individual's complaints, recommended the incinerator to be retested for safety. But the retest had the same flawed parameters as the first test, and eventually the rest of the soil was burned. In 2001, the former town was taken off the national priority list for federal cleanup. That was it, it was over. Or was it? Because, still all these years later there is still a legacy of the disaster that plagued Times Beach, and a pretty important one at that. This environmental disaster didn't just put a ghost town on the map, it ushered forward a new era of environmental protection standards inside the US, at least that was something. But the legacy of the town itself is also important, and that continues to live on through the people who went through this ordeal at the time. Animosity persists amongst the former residents. Some at the federal government and their poor management of the situation, some at the chemical companies responsible for the whole ordeal, as well as for Russel Bliss who was equally culpable. Some were mad at God Himself for bringing a flood that destroyed their homes, and some are angry at former mayor Leistner, who many today feel forced them to leave their homes behind for pocket change. But she wasn't to blame. She tried what she could to get the EPA to revise its offers, she tried to get people adequately compensated, but it was an impossible position. What bargaining power did one tiny town's mayor have against an entire governmental organisation? Especially when homes were destroyed, people were homeless. And ultimately those who didn't take the deal she helped broker ended up worse off in the end. What more could she have done? Leistner said in 2017 that she had no way of controlling what the EPA offered: > "I didn't have anything to do with their money." People are still right to be bitter though. Their homes were washed away or rendered uninhabitable, the community that had been forged in the fires of the Great Depression, for some the only place they ever knew or wanted to know, was stripped away from them, and it wasn't their fault. And what about Bliss? What happened to him after this whole disaster came to a head? Well mostly he got sued out the wazoo. And now him and the chemical companies have spent many years playing the blame game. Bliss consistently denies having any knowledge that the materials were toxic, but the chemical companies have always maintained that they did disclose that the chemical waste was toxic. I mean it's a chemical plant, what did Bliss think he was hauling away, fruit? But Bliss does have some evidence for his claim. He even sprayed the oil on his own property where he and his family lived. When previously questioned on the situation, he said: > "If I thought it was something bad, would I spray it on my own farm where my family is? Would any human being do that?" If we view Bliss favourably here, you could see him as a naïve moron who thought he could make some easy money and ended up causing more problems for himself. But many do not believe his accounts. As a result of that lawsuit that Piatt filed from her amateur detective work in 1971, Bliss was forced to admit his waste-hauling activity and identify the dozens of sites across the state where he had dumped it. That doesn't necessarily mean he knew it was toxic, but if he didn't know it was toxic, why bury it? Why not take it to a dump or burn it like you would with regular garbage? I guess ignorance really is bliss. Russel views himself as a victim in all of this. He was sued a lot for his actions, and there were technically no laws against what he did at the time. But he did find himself in jail in the end anyway, on tax evasion charges because he didn't report his waste disposal income to the IRS. He told CNN of the people who blame him: > "I think it's unfair, unjust… All my friends say that I was a scapegoat." Maybe he's right, who knows. There are still scientific disagreements over dioxins today that stem from this very disaster. Scientists generally disagree how much it takes to put a person at risk, which probably depends on a whole host of factors anyway. People who claim dioxins aren't dangerous at all often take the words of Dr. Vernon Houk of the Centre for Disease Control or CDC, look at that, the third alphabet agency in this video, isn't the government great? Houk was recorded as saying that the evacuation of Times Beach was an overreaction. Although the people who carry this narrative tend to overlook the fact that Houk was the one who ordered the evacuation in the first place. But others think the US government had an ulterior motive when they were dealing with the Times Beach situation, like Steve Taylor, co-founder of the Times Beach Action Group. He asserts that because the toxins at Times Beach were closely related to those in Agent Orange, the government may have had a vested interest in trying to minimise the Times Beach investigation, which would limit its own blame for what was happening with Agent Orange in Vietnam. Hence the EPAs lowball offer and delaying tactics for testing. After all, you would think the Environmental Protection Agency would be interested in... you know… protecting the environment. Steve Taylor states on the matter: > "The Vietnam veterans (referring to those who suffered from health complications due to Agent Orange) got a huge settlement. There are a lot of people I know who were exposed to the same stuff and more - and didn't." And what of Times Beach today? Well, it's been transformed. The land that was once Times Beach has been turned into Route 66 State Park. The only building that remains is a former roadhouse that used to be the "Bridge Head Inn" in the town. It's now a museum and gift shop selling Route 66 nicknacks. The area is plenty green, there's parking, a playground, and benches. If there's any harmful chemicals left it doesn't seem to bother the wildlife, with deer being spotted in the area, and skinny, new-growth trees are pretty common. There is a giant ash pit where the incinerator used to be, and a large mound where the contaminated houses were buried. Only the soil was burned. But generally speaking, the landscape is healing. Every year, on the final Saturday of September, former residents of Times Beach gather on the site to see old friends, tell stories, and shed tears for their lost home. Many say they would move back in a heartbeat today. The only real reference that a place was ever here are the ash pit, and a single display in a corner of the museum, which makes it even more suspicious, it really does seem like the US government were trying to hide the whole thing away. It feels disrespectful to the memory of the town, to the people who lived and grew up there. An entire portion of your life, boiled down to a small display in the corner of a museum somewhere. There's still generational trauma that those who used to live there feel even today. Teachers at the time made Times Beach kids sit at the front of class, away from the rest of the students, in case they were somehow contagious of the toxins. People remember the flood, and the devastation, and the birds dying from the chemicals. Former mayor Leistner herself even felt that ostracization. She had a brand-new leather jacket that had gotten dirty in the flood, but when she took it to the dry cleaner, her business was refused. People and their children and their grandchildren still suffer from rare disorders and diseases. People can't prove it was the dioxins, as others have turned out fine, but its highly suspected. What hits home the most for the Times Beach disaster is that there is no happy ending here. Not really. The former residents come together when they can, as with every year that passes their old home is slowly lost and forgotten to the inevitable passage of time. But that community spirit can never be what it was, the buildings can't be rebuilt, and the memories can't be visited. It was a perfect storm of malice, ignorance, incompetence, and straight up bad luck that caused huge trauma that still persists to this day among so many people, even almost half a century later. But the story of Times Beach is a very human story, about desperation, about grief, about purpose, about belonging, about corruption, about greed, about conspiracy, about banding together as a people, about making the hard decisions when there can be no winners, and ultimately about moving on. Regardless of their home being gone, the residents of Times Beach will always be brought together by their uniquely shared experience. And maybe one day long into the future, people will splash, swim and fish in the Meramec River at Times Beach once again. ## Key Takeaways - Times Beach, Missouri, was a close-knit community that thrived despite economic hardships. - The town's downfall began with the illegal dumping of toxic chemicals by a waste hauler. - A severe flood in 1982 exacerbated the town's contamination, leading to its evacuation. - The EPA's handling of the situation was criticized for delays and low buyout offers. - The legacy of Times Beach includes ongoing health concerns and a transformed landscape. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What was the original purpose of Times Beach? Times Beach was originally designed as a holiday park for doctors, managers, and high society individuals from St. Louis to enjoy during the summer months. ### How did Times Beach become a permanent settlement? During the Great Depression, many people from the city moved into their homes in Times Beach to ride out the hard times due to the lower cost of living. ### What was the population of Times Beach at its peak? By 1982, the population of Times Beach had grown to around 2,500 residents. ### What chemical contamination led to the evacuation of Times Beach? The town was contaminated with dioxins, which are highly toxic chemicals, due to the spraying of contaminated oil on roads, buildings, and farmland. ### Who was responsible for the chemical contamination in Times Beach? Russell Bliss, a waste hauler, mixed chemical waste with used motor oil and sprayed it on various surfaces in Times Beach. The chemicals originated from a pharmaceutical facility in Verona, Missouri. ### What role did the EPA play in the evacuation of Times Beach? The EPA initially delayed testing the soil and later offered low buyout prices to residents, which caused significant conflict and division among the community. ### What happened to the residents of Times Beach after the evacuation? Many residents accepted the buyout offers from the EPA and moved away, while a few holdouts remained until the town was officially disbanded in 1986. ### What is the current status of the Times Beach site? The land that was once Times Beach has been transformed into Route 66 State Park, with a museum and gift shop as the only remaining building. ### What legacy does the Times Beach disaster have? The disaster led to new environmental protection standards in the US and continues to affect the former residents, who still experience generational trauma and health issues. ### What was the impact of the flooding in Times Beach in 1982? The flooding submerged the entire settlement, destroyed homes, and further contaminated the soil with dioxins, leading to the eventual evacuation of the town. ## Sources - [Original Places video: The Story of Missouri's Toxic Ghost Town.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ElM_xAtbAY) - [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Oblique_aerial_landscape_view_%28AM_86148-2%29.jpg) by Collins, Tudor Washington, 1898-1970, photographer / openverse, by. ## Related Coverage